THE WILL POWER REPORT - Hawaii Blackout?

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Nothing but the Truth!

By Will Power

Will Power LogoJanuary
11, 2009 (San Diego) —
  I imagine lot of people
have had Hawaii Blackouts after a few too many Mai-Tais. But I’m alarmed
that President-Elect Obama was out of touch for the better part of a day.
The power went out in Oahau.
Now I realize he is not President yet. But just the idea that a power outage
could last for 12 hours is pretty scary in itself.

One of our greatest needs is a reform and rebuilding of our electric grid.
Remember the Great New York Blackout? That should never happen again. The problem
is the grid needs to be monitored, tested, and needs new fail-safe systems
to prevent system failure.

It might be a good idea to examine the possibility of putting more power lines
underground. The recent ice-storms in the Northeast have shown how vulnerable
to weather events the current system is.

Another avenue to be explored is superconducting power lines. Recent advances
have made the superconducting power line operate at liquid nitrogen levels.
These lines are much more efficient with practically no losses due to resistance,
which currently eats up ¼ of our electricity. We need research in this area
of power delivery.

The grid is going to need new feeder branches. Sad to say, some of these branches
will cross environmentally sensitive territory. We need to explore ways to
build power lines that are stronger, safer, and less visually polluting. Every
year in the US , high winds knock down power lines and start forest fires.
Perhaps some of these lines need to be underground as well.
An expected increase in wind and solar power will mean the entire grid is going
to need restructuring. One of the most important restructuring problems is
buying power from private citizens. If individuals choose to build a private
solar or wind system, they should be able to resell the power to the grid at
a fair market price. Unless this is legalized, we will always have an “Energy Problem.”

And the President should NEVER be “off the grid.”

Will Power is a retired teacher who holds a masters degree
in creative writing.


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